Aman Bhatnagar, Co-founder, NebulARC Technologies shares in his interview that classroom lectures & faculty mentoring received at Great Lakes exposed him to the idea of entrepreneurship

Q&A

• Please tell us about NebulARC Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

NebulARC is a tech startup solving the most pertinent problem of lack of supply chain visibility across various industries. Via our IoT-driven, AI-enabled product, we are enabling the businesses to enhance their operational efficiency & reduce the losses due to lack of real-time insights across the supply chain, thereby, leading to transformation of the supply chains into profit centers. We are a small team of 12 technocrats with founding team having total industry experience of 50+ years and have Indian Navy as one of our first customers. We are proud to be the digital transformation enablers for the defense warriors of India.

• What inspired you to become an entrepreneur?

My inspiration for entrepreneurship was a combination of both – working around & learning from some good leaders at Knowlarity & some pure good luck. While working at Knowlarity, I interacted with many former entrepreneurs day in, day out. All were heading one or the other verticals at the company and while working as a Data Product Manager, I would chat with them about their journey and their success & failure stories along with the inputs about the new product I was working on. Then, there was Mr. Ambarish Gupta, our CEO at Knowlarity. Seeing him work meticulously to solve every problem was a boon for me. I understood all the small vagaries of entrepreneurship by observing the way he handled his daily activities.

My luck came after almost 3 years, having left Knowlarity & working on Supply chain problems of US based MNCs as an Analytics Lead Product for a startup. As luck would have it, out of nowhere, I met my current Co-founder, Alok Sharma at a common forum. He was also trying to solve supply chain problems for his clients. We exchanged our ideas and clicked instantly and we decided to work together. Had he not agreed, I think I would have had to look out for support for a longtime & may not have gone ahead with this idea instantly. So, on 12th March, 2018 NebulARC was born & we set out to bootstrap our way & earn success the hard way.

• How did your Great Lakes experience help you in your entrepreneurial journey?

I was exposed to Entrepreneurship first time at Great Lakes. There were four aspects of my Great Lakes journey that have made a big impact on my short entrepreneurial journey till date –

1. Guest/Industry Lectures & my stint as a Placement Committee member– I still remember, our very first Guest Lecture by Mr. Aloke Bajpai from ixigo.com. Listening to him that day laid foundation for entrepreneurship within me. The foundation became stronger each day while interacting with all the brilliant industry faculties (most of them entrepreneurs) either during guest lectures, as course faculties or during my interaction as a Placement Committee member.

2. Brilliant Resident Faculties– The most important part of GLIM for me was the knowledge I gained from our superb resident faculties especially Himadri Sir, Uma Sir & Bappa Sir. Being from the tech background, I actually have gained all business knowledge by listening to these brilliant professors at GLIM and now, I am using their inputs on day-to-day basis.

3. The Course Design – During that 1 year, the MBA with 8 trimesters was fast, hectic & tiring. But now when I look back at those days, I think all the aspects of 1 year program prepared me for this entrepreneurial journey – the time management, prioritizing things, to persevere & solve real life business problems, to learn fast – act fast and so on.

4. My fellow Vikings of PGPM’15 batch – I learnt a lot from my fellow Great Lakers of PGPM’15 batch. The cultural understandings, our camaraderie during both success & failures, the group studies, the late night parties & then 8 am classes – all these things have helped me to fight my way through this short entrepreneurship journey.

• What are the skills essential to become an entrepreneur?

I think the most important skill is perseverance. One can be brilliant at business skills, tech skills etc. that enable you to excel in your day-to-day job as a manager or a corporate employee but if one wants to be an entrepreneur then he/she must be ready to persevere with their goals even during hard times.

The journey seems exciting at first – you are your own boss, you can control every step, you can flaunt being an entrepreneur etc. but soon down the line you understand the reality. No monthly salary, no backups, product not shaping up as fast as you want, lack of resources but need to excel in output – all these issues lead to frustration & damaged morale. At that time, it’s your perseverance to fight on, the faith & having patience with yourself & your goal that drives you forward.

As this famous dialogue in The Matrix Revolution between NEO & Agent Smith goes –

“Agent Smith : Why, Mr. Anderson? Why, why, why? Why do you do it? Why get up? Why keep fighting? Do you believe you’re fighting for something? For more than your survival? Can you tell me what it is? Do you even know? Is it freedom? Or truth? Perhaps peace? Could it be for love? Illusions, Mr. Anderson. Vagaries of perception. Temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose. And all of them as artificial as the Matrix itself, although only a human mind could invent something as insipid as love. You must be able to see it, Mr. Anderson. You must know it by now. You can’t win. It’s pointless to keep fighting. Why, Mr. Anderson? Why? Why do you persist?

Neo : Because I choose to.

• What advice would you give to Great Lakers?

I would advise the Great Lakers –

1. to learn both inside & outside the class – from everyone around you in college

2. be active & participate as much as you can (in class, committees, competitions, seminars etc.)

3. focus on learning rather than scoring marks, each day of this journey will help you explore new things and will enable you to find your way to success, so just persevere & keep learning

Above all this, enjoy your 10 months at college as for most of you, this will be the last time you will be in a formal educational institution & may not get this opportunity again to enjoy close to 300 days with no worries of responsibilities & work pressure.

• How do you spend your free time?

I read books or listen to them and watch movies in whatever free time I get. I actually am a big movie buff and try to watch at least one movie (laptop or theatre) every week.

Senior Data Scientist Yeshwanth Babu talks about his experience of providing Data Science Consulting to Tech and Retails giants in Silicon Valley

Yeshwanth Babu,
Senior Data Scientist – Global Consulting
Fractal Analytics
MBA’ 13

Find out more in the interview below, where he talks about his experience of providing Data Science Consulting to Tech and Retail giants in Silicon Valley.

Q&A

• Please tell us about your typical day at work as Senior Data Scientist.

My typical day at work starts with me looking at my project tracker – a simple document where I keep track of my short and long term projects. At any point in time, I am working on one long term project and one or two short term analysis type projects. I am also responsible for the performance of my team of 4 Analysts.

Steps in my work involve:-

1. breaking down an abstract problem into actionable sub problems with goals
2. extracting and cleansing the data
3. doing extensive Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA)
4. writing optimized and scalable code to build models
5. measuring performance or arriving at inference
6. finally presenting the results to business stakeholders

• You have been working in Data Science Analytics consulting field from past 8 years. What advice would you give to students aspiring to work in this field?

Data Science consulting gives you opportunities to work on diverse set of problems. In my last 4 years, I have almost worked with most of the tech and retail giants in the Silicon Valley. You get to work with the best minds in their respective domains, but here is the catch, you are always expected to bring something new to the table. In my experience, I always felt that many a time clients hired one of us so we could provide them a fresh perspective. As a consultant you are paid by the hour, hence you always have to be on your toes, be extra prepared for the meetings. All in all you always have to be a step ahead than the rest of your product team members.

Last 4 years consulting for 10 different fortune 100 companies and 3 different emerging and high potential start- ups in the bay area taught me three great mantras-

1. Fail Fast → Philosophy of incremental development. Cut losses when something isn’t working and quickly pivot to something new.
2. Move Fast → Let’s say a particular problem deals with 5 lines of businesses (LOB’s) and let’s say lob A and B alone account for 85% of the business and lob A alone accounts for 60% of the revenues. I / My team would immediately go after LOB A, let’s say building a forecasting model to predict demand – supply in that lob or building an inference model to understand the $ value of a customer moving through different funnel stages in that lob. My point being solve for that 60% module, validate and report results. So that the business stakeholders have something to hold on to or plan for at least for that lob in the short term while you try to figure out the entire problem and solve for the same.
3. Ask the right questions and always question the status quo.

• How is working in US different than working in India?

I get to work with a diverse set of people in the US. Diversity in a team / company has huge benefits. I have been on projects where data scientists and behavioral scientists have worked together. I had the opportunity to have worked with a head chef on scenario planning regarding which cuisines the culinary team should go for on which days of the week to maximize coupon sales in the office kitchens. So to summarize in one word – Diversity.

• What role did Great Lakes play in shaping your career?

I owe a tremendous lot to my Professors at Great Lakes. Every single class in the curriculum, right from Statistics to Economics to Ethics to Risk Management was important. I specifically want to thank a few of them whose classes I enjoyed thoroughly.

1. Prof. Bappaditya Mukhopadhyay – Bappa sir as we call him. I adore him for his simplicity, he instilled in us one important thing – “Learning from First Principles”. First Principles thinking enables you to discover unconventional insights based on fundamental truths. We basically boil things down to fundamental truth and then reason up from there.
2. Prof. T.N. Swaminathan – When the startup I joined post my graduation was going through some tumultuous times. I wrote to Prof Swaminathan saying I was finding it difficult to go after the positions / roles I aspired for, because my work experience was less. He immediately opened up his contacts. That was a pleasant gesture from him. He didn’t have to personally vouch for me but he did, getting the right opportunity at the right time is very difficult many a times, Prof Swaminathan gave me one and I utilized it to the fullest then.
3. Prof Veeravalli’s class on Entrepreneurship was important at many levels. If your client is a startup or a new strategic business unit in a big firm, many a time you don’t have huge volumes of data. Your thinking needs to be a bit different in these scenarios. The metrics you go after for optimizing or predicting become much more basic. His classes already taught us these things so I didn’t have to learn it the hard way.

• What advice would you give to Great Lakers?

I would advise them to go after the roles one desires or the ones that give them immense pleasure instead of just looking at the pay-packet size. The lessons from the curriculum and the experiences you earn will always come in handy both in the short and long term.

• What do you do in your free time?

I developed an interest for Chess late in my life. I am currently ranked around ~1950 levels in rapids. I also play tennis on the weekends.

Clavell Santiago rates excellent communication and presentation skills as essentials for a successful sales career.

Clavell Santiago
MBA’18
Area Sales Manager
Coffee Day Beverages, Mumbai

In the interview below, Clavell Santiago talks about life- long learning lessons he learnt at Great Lakes Gurgaon and he guides students on making best of their MBA journey. He is also a professional violinist. Read out to know more about Clavell’s journey.

Questions

• Please tell us about your role at Coffee Day Beverages

I am currently responsible for the HoReCa segment for Coffee Day Beverages in Mumbai. The role includes Key Account and Distributor Management. Since Mumbai is the hub of various corporate offices, I also manage Pan India Accounts. Apart from this, I look after new product launches and work on the marketing mix within the segment.

• What suggestions would you give to students aspiring for sales profiles

Sales is not easy.It requires a high degree of discipline.For a student aspiring to be in sales,he/she should be ready to handle rejection,initially this is the most difficult part of the job. Moreover,one has to be “Prepared” all the time,the market place is very competitive and in order to be ahead of competition being relevant and knowledgeable is the key to success.

• What are the life – long learning lessons you learnt at Great Lakes

Every day at GLIM was a learning of a new sort, be it from my peers or the professors. But the most valuable lessons I learnt was from my interaction with Dr. Jones who was my mentor for the Live Project. He made me realize that even if you have the best content, but you do not present is effectively then it is of no use. I am a strong believer of this, and I also ensure my team follows this mantra in every aspect of our business communication.

• You are handling a team at Coffee Day Beverages. What are the key skills that a good team leader should possess?

I believe that a good team leader should master the art of communication; this is a key driver towards success because at every stage your team members look up to you for direction and motivation. Further, the ability to innovate is an important skill. In today’s work environment, it is essential to lead by example and work with the team to find new ways to be more effective.

• One quote/belief you follow in life

“Sometimes the most important life lessons are the ones we end up learning the hard way”

• What advice would you like to give to Great Lakers

Make the most of your time at college, please don’t get too comfortable within your hostel rooms. The best part of college is that no one will ever judge you and you can afford to make mistakes, so yeah JUST KEEP MAKING MISTAKES!

• What do you do in your free time ?

I am a professional violinist, and I do a few gigs whenever possible. I am currently also working on a solo music project which I plan to finish in the next 3 months.

From interning at Jabong to heading logistics for 5 countries at Namshi in a span of 4 years, Robin Rajan talks about building a fast track career

Robin Rajan
MBA’15
Head of Logistics, Namshi.com

Find out what Robin Rajan says about receiving life changing mentoring at Great Lakes

Questions

• You are heading logistics at Namshi.com. How has been the journey so far?

The last few years have been fun. I was an unmotivated, average backbencher in school, and I somehow scraped through engineering after repeating multiple papers. It was only at Great Lakes, I realized the impact that great teachers can have on your motivation to learn and subsequently, I topped my Major. My career since then has shifted to the fast lane. Progressing from interning at Jabong to heading logistics for 5 countries at Namshi in a span of 4 years, I get a high from creating opportunities and proactively doing bigger and better things every day; it’s addictive.

• To whom do you owe your success?

First and foremost, credit goes to my parents who gave me the opportunity and pushed me to focus on education. Secondly, the enthusiasm of the faculty at Great Lakes really did change me. It was invigorating to have professors who answered questions and from whose classes you’d actually learn something. They gave me hope. Thirdly, I was lucky enough to be molded by a few strong mentors at various companies. The education must never end.

• Please share one belief/quote that you follow in your life.

“Your network is your net worth.” I first heard it from Dr. Bala. It took me a few years after Great Lakes to fully assimilate the profundity of this statement. The best professional opportunities in life do indeed come from your network.

• Share a few words of advice for future Great Lakers.

Avoid trapping yourself into thinking “This subject isn’t relevant to me because I’m planning to get a job in XYZ” or “How is this subject ever going to help me”. I’m here to tell you that if you truly are ambitious about career growth (and aren’t doing an MBA simply to embellish your profile – in which case, party away), then every single thing you learn at Great Lakes will help you in your management career. Grab that first bench, listen attentively and devour what’s being taught. Even if you don’t directly apply some of the methods, later in your career, it will help you think more broadly and holistically about the alignment between the company’s goals, how different functions within a company operate and what’s the best way to spend your time contributing. In a highly competitive job market, knowledge separates the future leaders from the pack.

• How do you like to spend your free time?

I’m either Youtubing at home trying to learn something new or reading non-fiction or researching my next travel destination.Life is short and there is too much wonder in this world. Every moment counts.

Business Analyst, Ayushi Maheshwari dedicates her success to lessons taught by Great Lakes faculty

Ayushi Maheshwari, MBA’15
Business Analyst, Cognizant Consulting, London

In a Q&A below find out what Ayushi Maheshwari has to talk about her experience of working in London and her journey of working in a consulting domain

Q&A

• Please tell us about your role at Cognizant Consulting, London.

I am working as a Business Analyst with Cognizant Consulting-Insurance practice for almost 4 years now. I am leading a specific line of business for one of the largest Insurance Companies in UK and Europe. My role mainly involves stakeholder management, requirements gathering, gap analysis, business planning, project management and a lot of ‘talking’. 🙂 Having worked with different teams from UK, Latin America, Europe and Australia and after facing varied challenges in terms of culture, language and technology, the journey has been nothing short of a brilliant experience so far with every step shaping me becoming better professionally and personally.

• What are the life- long learning lessons your MBA journey at Great Lakes has taught you?

Great Lakes has acted as a catalyst in shaping my career path. The one year intense programme nurtured all of us to be always business ready and presentable. Being in the consulting space, I now specifically appreciate our Business Consulting lessons where I learnt to ask questions, always. Similarly, being on the business side of an IT project taught me the importance of asking ‘why’ rather than ‘how’ and that is indeed a key mantra which I will always remember.

• How is it different working in UK than in India?

Working in UK is very different and quite an experience, I must say. Working directly with the clients helps in gaining a lot of exposure and polishes one’s personality and customer handling skills. We get to interact and meet so many different people from different cultures, profession and roles. Working in UK has taught me to be more open about my thoughts and how building client relationships go a long way. Also one thing that UK teaches you is to be ON time always. Be it train, meeting or a movie, you have to be ‘on time’.

• Please share one belief/quote that you follow in your life.

If you do not step ‘forward’, you are always in the same place.

• Share a few words of advice for future Great Lakers.

All I would say to future Great Lakers is just to follow your heart and never settle for ‘higher salary’ but a role you don’t like. Hang in there if for some time and things will fall into place if you choose a career you love. I believe graduation (Engineering, Medicine, Arts, Commerce etc.) is what your parents or friends choose for you but MBA is always what you choose to do. With amazing people in Great Lakes Gurgaon like Umashankar  Sir, Bappaditya Sir, VP Singh Sir and others, you can be assured to get the right guidance always. Heaps of assignments, sleepless nights, presentations, guest lectures, hostel parties and ‘open book exams’, everything will be worth it. Been there, done that!

• How do you like to spend your free time?

I am a travel freak and best part about being in UK is the ease of travel. I have been to almost 10 different countries till now and every place has left me (and my Instagram page!), craving for more 🙂 Other than travel, cooking is the next thing that de-stresses me. A good plate of food after a horrible day at work, nothing like it! I like to try different cuisines but ‘chaat’ or street food items are my ultimate delights, both in preparing and eating 🙂  

Recipient of awards like Promising Star 2018 and Emerging Professional 2018 at Aditya Birla Sun Life Insurance, Vikas Kumar shares his experience of studying at Great Lakes Gurgaon

Vikas Kumar, Branch Manager – Sales Leadership Program, Aditya Birla Sun Life Insurane

Questions

1.Please tell us about your role at Aditya Birla Sun Life Insurance

Currently I am working in the capacity of Branch Manager in the agency vertical of Aditya Birla Life Insurance at Sasaram, Bihar. In this role, I have to manage agency business sourced through IRDAI certified insurance Agents. This role also involves Retail Sales, Agency Development, Team Management and Sourcing Business, keeping all the regulations by IRDAI in place. The branch I am handling is the No. 1 branch in the region and comes under top 3 branches in the zone

2. Recently you were recognized for your contribution at Birla Sun Life Insurance, please tell us about the award.

I was bestowed with two awards by Aditya Birla group in 2018. The details of the awards are as follows:

Aditya Birla Capital-Promising Star 2018

Last year in July, I was recognized by Aditya Birla Capital for exemplary work at ABSLI. Apart from achieving targets at different parameters, Sasaram branch acquired place under top 3 branches and country’s top 10 branches in FY 17-18 from ranking of 250+ in FY 16-17. This award was presented to me by Aditya Birla Capital Chief Executive, Mr. Ajay Srinivasan on the occasion of Aditya Birla Capital Day at Jaipur.

Aditya Birla Award-Emerging Professional of the Year 2018

The second award that I received was for stupendous work at ABSLI at different parameters keeping values and ethics of ABG at first place. The Emerging Professional has a consistent track record of delivering superior results, using effective methodologies to plan and execute the role, and displays perseverance and intellectual integrity at the work place. A self-starter and high appetite for taking risks this person displays high levels of energy and initiative and is a willing participant in any initiative and goes the extra mile to accomplish organizational objectives. This award was presented by Chairman of ABG Mr. Kumar Mangalam Birla at Aditya Birla Awards 2018 at Hyderabad

3. What are the life- long learning lessons your one year MBA at Great Lakes taught you?

The kind of environment Great Lakes Gurgaon provides helps a lot in the real corporate world. The speedy course in 11 months requires a lot of mental strength to sustain and same is required in corporate world as you will always have pressure to achieve more and more particularly in SALES. Great Lakes also taught me to be a multitasker (eating, enjoying and doing extracurricular activities while studying and making assignment & PPTs) and same is required in Sales as you need to be available 24X7 for customers as well as advisors while managing your personal life.

4. Please share one belief/quote that you follow in your life.

Uncertainty offers the biggest opportunity.  Stay Unsettled

5. Share a few words of advice for future Great Lakers.

I would like to tell my fellow Lakers, this precious time of 11 months is not only about classroom teachings and back to back to lectures but it also teaches you a lot about the life which is going to stay with you till the age you retire. Life is all about maintaining balance between your professional and personal life and you have to prioritize in such a way that everything falls in place. So enjoy the ride and buckle up for the coming days.   

6. How do you like to spend your free time?

A wise man said “Once you taste excellence, you never settle for mediocracy” and knowledge is the best weapon to achieve it. I work in the investment domain where the biggest asset is your knowledge upgradation. So, in my free time I like to learn about the different financial instruments. 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/vikaskumar01

Great Laker Aditya Vats advices students on Live Projects

  Aditya Vats- MBA ‘16

                                                        Senior Manager – Sales and BD, Happay

“Don’t hesitate to experiment, you never know where your true potential lies till the time you do not move out of silos”, advices Aditya Vats to the present and future Great Lakers. He also gives credits to Great Lakes students for excelling in the live projects allocated by Happay.

Q) Please talk about your job role at Happay?

I am currently working as Senior Manager Sales and Business Development for the Northern region. My role primarily involves direct sales, channel management, developing and nurturing partnerships for driving top line for the company. I am also responsible for team management & enablement activities for the Associate BDs and new joinees, respectively.

Q) Happay engages management students for Live Projects. How has been your experience of working with Great Lakes students?

Live Projects allocated by Happay usually comprise of the teething problems the business is facing in its given construct. The students are then required to come up with possible solutions & strategies around solving the business challenge via various primary and secondary research mechanisms. Great Lakes students have consistently helped the management to drive key strategy decisions which is why we always come back to campus every year to recruit the best of the talent for our organisation.

Q) Any advice for current batch students who are planning to apply for live project this year.

I advice the students not to choose a Live Project just because of the brand/ organisation with which it is associated. The problem statement should be something that is in sync with the passion and the area of expertise a candidate wishes to work in.

Q) What are the life- long learning lessons your one year MBA at Great Lakes taught you?

The one year program taught me that if you focus on results, you will never change. However, if you focus on change, you will get the results. Furthermore, the mentorship received by the faculty members helped me identify and realize that as a professional you should be so good at what you do that no one can ignore you. These learnings have really helped me shape and propel my career in the right direction.

Q)Share a few words of advice for future Great Lakers.

Don’t hesitate to experiment. You never know where your true potential lies till the time you do not move out of your silos. The one year you’ll spend at Great Lakes will expose you to many such opportunities. My advice, grab them and make the best decision about your career path and future.

Q) How do you like to spend your free time?

I like to travel and read whenever I have the luxury of time.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/adityavats/

Climbing Corporate Ladder with Ramana Sambu

                                 

Ramana Sambu – MBA’2016  

Associate Director, Business Development, Droom Technology Pvt ltd

Believer of “never lose hope, trust, trust and trust yourself”, Ramana Sambu shares the anecdotes for a successful career in the corporate world. In the short span of two years, Ramana has risen to the position of Associate Director and is leading a team at Droom Technology. Ramana especially gives credits to Personal Effectiveness sessions, he attended at Great Lakes as his major life changing experience that carved the niche for his corporate career. Let’s find out more about him in his interview below.

 Q&A

Q. What is your current role at Droom Technology?

Currently at Droom.in, I’m building a startup within a startup as a head for one of our Proprietary eco system tools called ECO (Auto Inspection). I am leading a team of 17 people and we are responsible for building supply across PAN INDIA with an aim to expand to all metro cities by March 2019 and reaching the team size of 800 people. I am also responsible for managing the End to End operations along with generating revenue of 24 Cr annually.

Q. In such a short span you have reached at the position of Associate Director. To what do you owe your success?

I joined Droom post my MBA at Great Lakes Institute of Management, Gurgaon as Associate Manager, Business Development in the year 2016, where I worked directly with all the departments (Marketing (BTL), Ad-sales, Operations, Sponsorships and Business Development) and, I also used to network with various other departments at Droom. I was directly reporting to Droom’s co -founder Rishab Malik which helped me in excelling my skills and improving my efficiency manifolds. As a result I was able to establish great belief and trust in my peers and soon I was promoted to Associate Director along with handling a great project like ECO( ECO is an inspection/ verification service provider for automobiles in India). I believe commitment towards my work, passion to grow as an individual & zeal of building something new which disrupts the market led me to grow faster than others.

Q. How much has the learning experience at Great Lakes helped you in carving your career?

One of the great things that Great Lakes has is Personal effectiveness session which I don’t think that any other B-school has. The session vastly helped many students in several ways to build their career and I was amongst the ones who identified their real core strengths and weaknesses during the session, in turn it helped me in re-building my professional career in the field of business development.

Great Lakes exposed me to plethora of case studies, incessant feedback from Professors and internship opportunity. Great Lakes has excellent faculty where every Professor is a knowledge bank in his/her respective field. I was blessed to have an opportunity to do a Live Project at FIPI (Federation of petroleum Industry). The 12 weeks long Live Project developed me as an individual in terms of sharpening my skills and providing me an exposure for working about 12 to 13 hours every day which later on helped me in my job and resulted in achieving rapid growth.

Q. You are leading a team now. What qualities do you think a team leader should possess?

According to me, below are some qualities that a team leader should possess

• Start every day at Zero
• Cross Collaboration and continuous Feedbacks from the team
• Stop evaluating your team based on potential – differentiate between superstars and rock stars
• Decentralize decision making – Drive top-down context setting, not top-down decisions!

Q. Were you an active member of any committee/society at Great Lakes. Please share the experience?

I was an active member for Energy Club and a Passive member of Alumni Committee. I still remember a major life changing incident in my life.  Because of our alumnus, me and my friend got an opportunity to represent our Country and College in Indonesia as Indian Delegates at International Student Energy Summit-2015 to present a paper on Restoring of Lakes based on Kakatiya Project (Telangana). There we also stood among TOP 5 teams across 117 countries & it was fully funded by the ISES-2016 team. And the entire credit goes to our esteemed alumnus Mr. Vishal Gajjar who helped us in applying for ISES event.

Q. Do you have any advice for future Great Lakers?

With the amount of exposure I have gained in last 2.5 years at Droom, I can suggest to all my future Great Lakers that “Never ever lose hope and Trust….trust and trust yourself”.

Q. What do you like to do you in your free time?

I take out my time every day to play TT (Table tennis) and read a lot of  E-Magazines on Global Startups, Business Tycoons, and veteran Industrialists .

Q. Please share one belief/quote that you follow in your life.

Work hard and Party harder

 

 

Alumni Speak: “Switching from IT to Consultancy was a crucial step for my career, but making this transition wouldn’t have been possible without a formal business education.”

 

Freshly recruited by KPMG India as a Consultant in the IGH (Infrastructure, Government & Healthcare) domain, Sayan Chaudhuri (PGPM 2017-18), is experiencing a major shift in his career and enjoying the challenging new role. We got in touch with him recently to discuss his MBA experience. Here are a few excerpts from the interview.

Q1. Tell me about your professional background before joining Great Lakes, Gurgaon, and why did you decide to pursue an MBA?

Before joining Great Lakes, I was working as a Systems Engineer at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) for more than 3 years. Even with a promising career trajectory at one of the highly acclaimed MNCs, I believed the time had come where I needed to upgrade my skills for moving up the corporate ladder and explore the strategical side of the business so that I could make a direct impact instead of just following orders. Acquiring an MBA degree from a tier I institute seemed like the right way to facilitate the career switch and Great Lakes, Gurgaon gave me the perfect platform to make it possible.

Q2. How did the one year at Great Lakes help you transform into the professional that you are today?

The journey from a hardcore IT profile of a Systems Engineer to a Strategy Consultant at one of the Big 4s was not an easy one, but Great Lakes ensured that I completed it with perfection. There was a lot to learn and the unwavering support of the acclaimed faculty at GL ensured thorough preparation for the corporate challenges that lie ahead. Most importantly, the ample practical learning opportunities that I received in the form of interactions with renowned industry experts helped me understand the day-to-day business challenges and prepared me for the job that I’m in today.

Q3. Mention three key highlights of your Great Lakes experience.

• Inspiring & Esteemed Faculty
• Unparalleled Exposure in the form of Corporate Lecture Series and Live Projects
• The Ice Breaking trip to Rishikesh

Q4. Which faculty member/guest lecturer impacted your education the most?

Choosing one faculty member from a pool of such gifted mentors is next to impossible, to say the least. All the skills that I acquired in the last one year are a result of the collective effort of all the faculty members at Great Lakes, combined with all the esteemed corporate mentors and CXOs who took the time out of their busy schedules to interact and educate our young and eager minds. Therefore, selecting any one of them would be an unfair assessment on the same.

Q5. Tell me about your current organization and job role. How do you think going to a B-school has helped you in your career?

I’m currently working with KPMG India as a Consultant, tasked with catering to the needs of the IGH (Infrastructure, Government & Healthcare) clients of the firm.

As I mentioned earlier, switching from IT to Consultancy was a crucial step for my career, but it was the right one and without the help of a formal business education it would have been next to impossible to achieve the same.

Q6. What advice would you like to give to the future Great Lakers?

The one year at Great Lakes is filled with omnipresent learning opportunities. More than anything, your peer group is an untapped reservoir of knowledge. All your batch mates have come from diverse occupational backgrounds with a combined experience of 100+ years. So, use that. Learn from their experience, form lifelong bonds and as this is going to be your last academic year (most probably) don’t forget to have fun.

 

Alumni Speak: Mohit Kakkar – Winner of SAP Global IoT Prototype Competition

Mohit Kakkar, student of PGPM Energy (Batch 2014-16), is currently working with Deloitte Consulting India Pvt. Ltd. and has recently won the SAP Global IoT Prototype competition.

We got in touch with him to know more about his achievement.

What was the SAP Global IoT prototyping competition about?

The Prototype competition was meant to give you an end-to-end experience of designing and prototyping an Internet of Things app for people’s needs. The top 5 submissions each won a brand-new Intel NUC Mini PC and $25 gift card which can be used to fund an entrepreneur on Kiva. The top 200 runner ups were displayed on the SAP “best of” gallery with their outstanding prototypes.

What is your line of work? Why did you take part in SAP Global IoT Prototyping competition?

After completing my masters from Great Lakes, I started working as a SAP consultant at Deloitte Consulting Pvt. Ltd. I participated in this competition because I am an IoT enthusiast from my post-graduation days where I learnt the fundamentals of IoT like Sensors, Cloud and various other business technologies. Since the digital transformation roadmap strategy of SAP got changed and they announced SAP Leonardo which was put forward as an innovation portfolio focused on innovative solutions running seamlessly on the cloud, there was no better way to get myself acquainted with the platform other than by participating in this competition and working on it in real time.

In your own words, what specific problem does this prototype seeks to solve? How does IoT provide an ideal solution?

We are living in 2017 and power utility companies today do know where a power outage has occurred, but they do not know what triggered that outage. Additionally, utility companies still can’t predict an outage and hence, they can’t take any preventive measures to stop it. On the other hand, by the time a crew member gets to know that a power outage has occurred at some place, the impacted customers suffer approximately 20 minutes of power outage on an average. Lastly, today customers have no visibility of their electricity consumption pattern and neither the electricity tariff that power utility companies charge them on a particular hour of the day.

Hence, the problems were many and I came up with a solution i.e. an innovative app which connects assets, control room operations team, crew members and customers/people.

Leonardo IoT Bridge provides us with capabilities to cut across various aspects of a power utility business model. We can monitor the real time health of the transformers using IoT sensors, using cloud platform edge computing we can store and analyse huge volumes of data of all the real time parameters; and we can also predict the future outages using machine learning algorithms. Moreover, we can also help the customers stay aware of their electricity consumption behaviour patterns by using smart meter data. Hence, we achieve increased transformer utilization, lesser power outages, and maximized revenue generation by monitoring the operational status and customer satisfaction.

What inspired you in creating your prototype?

My passion for IoT and excitement to learn SAP Leonardo framework inspired me to create this prototype. But to think through the complete end-to-end solution my 3.5 years of experience in Power utility industry and my subject knowledge which I gained at Great Lakes Institute of Management gave a head start to start this idea. Once the first draft was ready, the feedback and motivation I received from my mentor were a huge inspiration for me to build this prototype in an agile model, wherein I did multiple iterations to touch up the inconsistencies.

Do you plan to do further work in developing your prototype?

We have actually started building this solution in Deloitte. But I am eagerly waiting for the SAP connected goods portal, wherein we can configure and use the pre build APIs.

What are your thoughts on being able to fund an entrepreneur via the Kiva crowd funding platform? How did you go about identifying an entrepreneur to fund? Were there certain criteria that you used?

It felt really great that our hard work helped someone start their business. We talk about connecting people in the SAP Leonardo framework, but for all the winners to be able to fund an entrepreneur has truly connected people together.

Initially, I tried to fund an entrepreneur in my country, but then I found a lady in Cambodia who needed a loan of $625 to purchase a motorbike for her daughter to run her goods delivery business. She had received $600 already and I thought I should give my $25 gift prize to her and close down her request. It truly felt like bliss to be able to help someone so far away.

Read more about the Competition, winners and their prototypes here!

Alumni Speak: “The two years at Great Lakes helped me understand the dynamics and parameters of management from all possible dimensions.”

Abhijit Panda, a student of PGPM (E) 2015-17 batch, recently got recruited as a Pre-sales Consultant by HCL. Let’s find out what he had to say about his Great Lakes journey.

Q1. What led to your decision of pursuing an MBA?

“I’ll have to start at the beginning for that. I completed my B.Tech in Electrical Engineering from CV Raman College of Engineering Bhubaneswar, Odisha and after working on the technology front in IT sector for four years, the job profile got extremely monotonous and devoid of any sort of real challenge. I wanted to go back to school to unlearn and learn new crafts. I wanted to understand various aspects of business that help professionals take strategic decisions. I also wanted to have a 360-degree outlook of the global business scenario around me. Hence, in order to understand various key aspects of business (Financial, Marketing, Operational etc.), I decided to undertake a formal full time MBA course.”

Q2. How did the two years at Great Lakes help you transform? Did you achieve your goals for which you wanted to pursue an MBA?

“Absolutely. These two years at Great Lakes helped me understand the dynamics of management from all possible dimensions. I could understand the strategies, parameters, regulatory frameworks at play which govern the entire business ecosystem. The intensive classroom teaching along with guest lectures by industry experts broadened my learning curve and the live project opportunities were really helpful for my preparation.”

Q3. Mention two key personality traits that you acquired during your Master’s?

“The two important and key traits were Leadership and Time Management. Being a student council member as well as a member of various committees helped me immensely in acquiring the above-mentioned traits.”

Q4. That is great. So, what all communities were you a part of?

“I was a member of three student committees; BPR (Branding & Public Relations), Toastmasters and CREST (Annual Management Fest).”

Q5. Mention three key highlights of your program.

The three key highlights would be:

1. Diverse and Industry Relevant Subjects offered in the course.
2. High-quality Mentoring sessions by Professors
3. Live project opportunities to enhance skill sets and be industry ready.

Q6. What advice would you like to give to the future Great Lakers?

“My advice to the future Great Lakers would be to come to Great Lakes with an open mind to learn and create new dimensions. You will receive an enormous amount of support from everyone out here as well as ample avenues to showcase your talents. Work hard, build new skills, innovate, participate in prestigious B-school fests and be the best version of yourself as you walk out of the campus post two years.”

Alumni Speak: “What Great Lakes offered was a holistic learning approach that helped me immensely in my career.”

Abhishek Agarwal graduated from Great Lakes Institute of Management, Gurgaon, in 2016 and is currently working as the Product Manager at 91Mobiles.com. We recently had a chat with him about his professional life after graduation.

Here are some excerpts from the conversation.

 

Q1. What were you doing professionally before joining Great Lakes?

Before I started with my MBA at Great Lakes, I was working at IBM developing business applications in SAP for FMCG and utility sector projects.

Q2. It sounds like you had an interesting job profile there. So, what pushed you towards pursuing an MBA and why did you choose Great Lakes for your Master’s?

Yes, it sure was an interesting and challenging job profile, but I realised that there are limitations to how much impact one can have on the decision-making without developing business skills and perspective. Once this realisation kicked in, doing an MBA was the fastest route to achieving my goals.

The prime reasons for choosing Great Lakes, Gurgaon, were the one year advantage, world-class curriculum and the location. Also, a lot of hard work and dedication went into getting accepted in this prestigious institute.

Q3. How did the one year at Great Lakes help you transform?

First of all, I’d like to clear the misconception that one-year MBA’s course structure and curriculum is less challenging than its two-year counterpart. If anything, the one year MBA curriculum is more arduous in nature than a two year one, as you learn the same amount of concepts and fundamentals in lesser time. And trust me when I say that the one year at Great Lakes was so hectic and challenging that now I feel I can take any challenge thrown in my way by the corporate world head-on quite comfortably with poise and ease. Also, Great Lakes made me more of a logical and structural thinker, which is extremely important for my current job role.

Q4. Tell me more about your current organisation and job role.

I am currently working as a Product Manager at 91Mobiles, which is a Gurgaon based startup that helps people find the right gadget at the right price. My job role encompasses everything from product conceptualization to its final implementation.

Q5. Mention the key highlights of your GL experience.

1. Enlightening guest lectures, unparalleled practical exposure via industry interaction and great faculty
2. Learning and fun always went hand in hand.
3. And most importantly, I don’t think I slept for more than 4 hours per day on an average, during my one year at Great Lakes.

Q6. How would you describe the peer learning experience in and beyond the classroom at Great Lakes?

It was, without a doubt, a great experience meeting and learning from the people of my batch who came from diverse professional backgrounds. It made me understand the corporate world from so many different points of views. There is just so much that you can learn in a classroom, but what Great Lakes offered was a chance to learn even from my batch-mates and it is this type of holistic learning approach that helped me immensely in my career.

Q7. What advice would you like to give to the future Great Lakers?

I would just like to tell them to make the most of their time here at Great Lakes as it will prepare them for the corporate world. You can learn a lot from the faculty and your peers, so keep your eyes and ears open all the time and learn as much as you can. Also, build a solid network as you never know when and where that scrawny kid or the school jock would be able to get you out of a mess or help you crack a deal. Always remember Uncle Bala’s (Great Lakes’ Dean Padmashri Dr. Bala V Balachndran) words, “Your network is your net worth.”

Alumni Speak: “In today’s fast-paced world that thrives on cut-throat competition, a Bachelor’s degree is just not enough to fuel an individual’s ambition.”

Piyush Kant is the Director of Business Development at GCE Group and is responsible for the Indian and South-East Asian market of the Energy Efficiency Consulting Giant. He joined Great Lakes Institute of Management, Gurgaon, in 2010 in the first batch of the B-School. We recently sat down with Piyush to find out how the PGPM-Energy program of Great Lakes helped him in his career endeavours.

Here is what he had to say.

Tell me about your professional background before joining Great Lakes and also about what made you pursue MBA?

Piyush: After completing my engineering in Computer Science from Kurukshetra University and before joining Great Lakes, I was working with Cisco Systems as a Network Engineer.

In today’s fast-paced world that thrives on cut-throat competition, a Bachelor’s degree is just not enough to fuel an individual’s ambition. If you have a hunger to make it large in this corporate jungle; knowledge and understanding of the intrinsic factors focused on running a business and managing the people is imperative. This is why I didn’t stop after becoming an engineer and went on to pursue Masters in Business Administration.

Q2. So, why did you choose Great Lakes?

Piyush: I had a keen interest and passion of working in the energy sector and when it comes to energy, Great Lakes’ reputation is unparalleled and unmatched. At the time I joined the institute, it was Great Lakes Institute of Energy Research and Management (IEMR) – a one of a kind B-school with a focus on energy sector and its dedicated disciplines.

Q3. How did the two years spent at Great Lakes help you transform as a person?

Piyush: A lot actually. For starters, it turned a carefree man into a responsible one. I learned the true sense of empathy, the power and benefits of networking, traits necessary to become a leader were imbibed into my personality here, and most importantly, I learnt the art of learning from failures, how to overcome my fears and the thin line difference between confidence and foolishness.

Moreover, the institute helped make me a better person as it taught me that no reward is greater than the feeling of giving back/contributing to the society.

Q4. Mention three key highlights of your Great Lakes experience.

Piyush:

1. Diverse professional background of the students that facilitated learning beyond classrooms
2. Excellent practical exposure and personal interactions with the world renowned industry leaders
3. Highly motivated, energetic and experienced faculty

Q5. Which faculty members/guest speakers impacted your education and learning experience the most?

Piyush: Although the entire staff of Great Lakes holds an extremely special place in my heart as I would have never been where I am today without them, but Dr. S.K. Palhan, Mr. Mohan Lakhamraju and Mr. BVR Vamsi (Powergrid Corp India) had the most lasting impact on my learning.

Q6. Describe the peer learning experience at Great Lakes in and beyond the classroom in one word.

Piyush: Can I use two? “Exceptionally Brilliant.”

Q7. Tell me about your current organisation and job role. How do you think going to a B-school has helped you in your career?

Piyush: GCE Group operates in the sphere of financial consulting, audits, industrial safety, energy efficiency consulting etc. It is the largest Energy efficiency consultant on the globe, headquartered in St. Petersburg, Russia. I am currently serving this organisation as its Director of Business Development in the Indian and South-East Asian Region.

As I stated earlier that I have done my graduation in Science from Kurukshetra University, grabbing this job and rising up to this level in the energy sector would have been impossible for me if not for Great Lakes.

Q8. What advice would you like to give to the future Great Lakers?

Piyush: I would like to tell my fellow Great Lakers that – Explore more about yourself, discover what you really want to do and achieve in your life and believe in yourself at all times. Then, start working on your dreams to inspire yourself and keep moving forward. Remember, there is no shortcut to success and there is no such thing as a free lunch. So, always keep working hard for your dreams, spot opportunities, grasp them and keep climbing the ladder, however, slow the pace may be.

5 hours and 247 pages: The Seven Day Weekend

 

Last night I opened a book and 5 hours and 247 pages later, the book had broadened my thinking. That book was titled – “The Seven Day Weekend”, authored by Mr. Ricardo Semler.

The best part of reading a good book is that the horizons of the reader’s mind get broadened and he becomes wiser than he was before opening the book. What I realised post this mini-readathon was – 1) I was ready for the scheduled book review session. 2) I got something to read which was insightful not just in terms of business perspective, but also helped me to focus on what I actually want from my professional life and 3) the approach I have had with me actually does exist in the business world and firms do exist and make good profit by implementing the same approach.

The primary reason as to why this piece of work is admirable and inspirational is that the author talks of having chosen employee happiness and satisfaction as the driving force of his business, unlike the more bottom-line obsessed business workplaces.

The author shares his experience of working at Semco (the company headquartered at Sao Paulo, Brazil), where he wants not just him (the CEO), but also his employees, customers, suppliers and community to be happy. The real motivation or the driving force behind a successful company is not growth, not profits, not power, not status, but Happiness.

Along the way, he asked himself, “If the workweek is going to slop over into the weekend, then why can’t the weekend, with its precious restorative moments of playtime, my time, and our time, spill over into the workweek?” The author then provides a roadmap to achieve personal and professional success.

The stressful and many a times overloaded workweek robs us of our passion and pleasure, it destroys family and community stability, and sets up businesses to fail once they have burned out their employees and burned through ever more manipulative and oppressive strategies.

The book describes how managers can turn the repetition, boredom and aggravation of the usual workweek into an environment that is filled with joy, inspiration and freedom.

I do believe that the old way of doing business is sprinting towards its deathbed, and the time has come to re-invent and re-engineer the way of doing business which could be more or less like the Semco’s way, aimed at fulfilling the central purpose of business. Thus, a satisfactory and rewarding life can be made possible for the entire workforce for their hard work. In order to achieve that, it is important to treat co-workers like intelligent mature adults by allowing them to manage themselves. This, as a business model, has worked like a charm for Semco and could possibly be put to use at any organization, anywhere in the so business world that wants to move beyond traditional thinking to a more democratic realm.

While highlighting how flexibility in work time and self-management by employees can work wonders to improve a company’s bottom line, it also narrates how self-organized employee groups can harness extra potential to bring about change in productivity just by eliminating time lags. The book supports encouraging employees to rely on their own intuition and use it in the workplace with a combination of reasoning and experience to reach a decision.

The book is full of stories from Semco’s everyday existence and is a joy to read. Time and again these stories illustrate that one must not opt for the easy way out.

On one hand, it is a thought-provoking guidebook that reveals how freedom and happiness can lead a business to success. On the other, it is an easy, fun to read book as it shares the day to day experiences at the workplace. Also, it is 100% free of MBA-jargons.

Author : Kinshuk Chaturvedi

PGPM Class of 2017, Great Lakes

Alumni Speak: ‘Don’t stop when you are tired. Stop only when you are done!’

SANA QAMAR INTERVIEWED SANJAY SIROHI, PGPM GURGAON CLASS OF 2014 STUDENT. SANJAY IS WORKING AS AN ASSOCIATE CONSULTANT WITH MAVERIC SYSTEMS LTD. – AN IT SERVICES FIRM BASED OUT OF CHENNAI THAT OPERATES IN 3 DOMAINS VIZ. BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICES, TELECOM AND INSURANCE.

How did you benefit from the PGPM course offered by Great Lakes?

SANJAY: Great Lakes provided me a platform to learn about many dimensions of business – management skills, business ethics and what not. But most importantly, it helped me improve myself exponentially – both in professional and personal aspects. Like any other batch in such a program, our batch was a fine blend of students from different domains (Yes, IT ruled… again). I believe it is imperative to accommodate such a mix to enable us to learn from each other while we are on the go. I met some really inspiring people in my batch, who I am sure will become big names in their respective industries some years from now. Then, undoubtedly the faculty! With some truly renowned names of the management education system in India teaching us, I couldn’t have asked for more. From the antics of Bappa Sir to the textbook teaching style of Dr. Das, from the in-house group of scholars to the external faculty / industry speakers – we had it all! Not to forget the living legend himself, Uncle Bala kept visiting us every now and then for a pep talk! I was able to build a very strong network of people during that one year – thanks to Great Lakes! I realized the importance and utility of a good network only after coming to Great Lakes. As Uncle Bala always says, “Your network is your net worth”.

What is your current role?

SANJAY: I am a Business Analyst in the Banking and Financial Services domain, predominantly servicing clients in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) market areas. My key responsibilities include facilitating stakeholder meetings to elicit project requirements, performing gap analysis to define project scope, designing a plan to achieve the project goals and managing the requirements for the end-to-end delivery. I have been a part of 2 projects on Islamic Banking so far in the organization.

What was your live project and how did you get it?

SANJAY: I did a live project for Pro Activ Foods Limited, an FMCG firm in New Delhi. The project objective was to increase the online sales of their food products. As a team of 3 members, we tried to analyze the factors that influence the category selection in e-commerce.

Give us some insights on the industry you are in.

SANJAY: Over the years, Management Consulting has become extremely important for businesses to achieve superlative performance. Every organization longs for a sustainable efficiency improvement for long term success. To be a part of this industry, one must know the basics of business really well. Enterprises across the globe are trying to look for opportunities/areas of improvement that would help them in enhancing their business in more than one ways – solve issues, create value, maximize growth and improve business performance. To be an independent advisor, you need to be always on your toes and capable enough of providing alternatives to cater to the client needs as you are considered to be an expert brought on board for (presumably valuable) external advice. One must be mentally prepared to operate with agility to win in this dynamic business environment.

How did you plan and prepare yourself during the 1 year at Great Lakes to arrive at your desired job/role?

SANJAY: I knew exactly where I wanted to see myself a year down the line. To be precise, it was the management consulting job profile. Since ours was the first batch wherein ‘Analytics’ was introduced as a stream, I thought of being ahead of the curve. I had absolutely no knowledge of ‘Finance’, but thanks thanks to some wonderful teachers at GLIM, I developed a keen interest in the subject and took it up as my minor specialization (along with Marketing – which I believe is a must in an MBA grad’s profile). I was fortunate enough to find an extremely dependable mentor in Dr. Das early in the academic year. I was very comfortable sharing my goals/views with him. He guided me every now and then, and was instrumental in developing the self-belief in me. He truly was a pillar of strength for me during my stint as he kept motivating me to work harder and pursue my ambitions. He was officially assigned to be my mentor for one year, but to my good fortune is a mentor for life. Based on the feedback of the Placement Committee, the faculty members and a couple of Alums, I figured out the top 3 companies I need to focus on during the campus placements. As luck would have it, I managed to clear the first one that came in for recruitment.

Please share your valuable insights for PGPM, batch of 2016.

SANJAY: Some of the key points to remember are:

• Know where you want to be. Nothing should deter you from this stance. Be adamant about it.
• Figure out a specialization in line with the kind of role you want to opt for.
• Keep performing a status check of where you are and where you want to be. I suggest you to do it after every term – it is a rather good time for retrospection.
• Prioritize the companies you want to target. Appearing for every interview coming your way is not a good approach to find a relevant job.
• Read extensively about the company coming in for campus placement. You should be able to talk about the company for at least 5 minutes with any CXO level personnel.
• It is important to understand what role the company has to offer to you. And it is equally important to identify what you have to offer to the company, and communicate how you seem fit.
• Don’t stop when you are tired. Stop only when you are done!

-SANA QAMAR

Samurais, PGPM Gurgaon Class of 2016